Bill Marriott wrote:
Back in the day when there was just MetaCard, they had a free demo version
that supported just 10 lines of code per handler, and then the least
expensive registration option was $999.
I wrote the company back then and suggested they release a version priced
somewhat (ok, significantly) lower for all the people who wanted to use
MetaCard in a non-commercial, or "business productivity" way. Scott Rainey
answered me. I was basically "flamed" for suggesting this, and told with
disdain how they had already "thought this issue through" completely, how
such pricing would kill the business, how supporting "hobbyists" would take
away from improving the software, how I lacked any business sense, how my
marketing education was deficient, etc. etc. (Not making this up.)
There's implication and then there's inference, with a lot of room in
between.
As someone who used to argue with Dr. Raney weekly and finally came to
admire and respect him, I feel compelled to offer this tidbit about him
I've learned over the years:
Raney has an unusually efficient way of communicating. Whereas most
people spend a certain amount of their human interactions doing social
rituals unrelated to the purpose of the communication (e.g., if you want
to ask your neighbor for a cup of sugar you first ask how she's doing),
Raney gets in, gets the point, and moves on to the next thing on his plate.
Maybe it's his obesssion with efficiency (the engine _is_ pretty tight,
after all). I don't know where it comes from, I just know that the more
I came to know him the less it bothered me, and as the years went by I
would sometimes see his written interactions with other people as
completely innocuous, maybe even evidencing a dry sense of humor (ok,
very dry), and yet the newcomer would walk away offended by the
communication.
Even more mysterious, I've seen several instances where people on other
lists make claims about his work that are factually incorrect, he shows
up only to correct them in a simple matter-of-fact way, and they insist
he came out of nowhere and started a fight. It's the damndest thing,
but I've seen more than a dozen misperceptions like that, and yet time
and again the full mail log shows their memory of events to be backwards
from what actually happened. It's almost like his presence has the
ability to cloud men's minds. :)
It is true that he writes with an authoritative tone, but he has the
knowledge and background to back it up. In all the times I tried to
argue with him he was incorrect only once, and quickly changed his
position to support mine once I presented better data. He's no mental
slouch, nor particularly stubborn so long as he's presented with solid
supportable facts.
He's quite knowledgeable about the things he writes about, and I've
never seen him be unfair.
In brief, I've found Raney an acquired taste, but really very enjoyable
once I got to know him. I found things became more enjoyable when my
conversations with him involved things other than me telling him that
everything he's doing is wrong.
After having come to know him a bit more, I can say with some confidence
that his intention was not to be dismissive, simply to get the the point
in the most efficient way. While it may seem brusk at first, his
conversational efficiency lets him move on to the next thing, and moving
on keeps his desk clear, and keeping his desk clear has helped him
single-handledly accomplish more than most armies of well-funded xTalk
developers before or since.
So lest we discount his as some crazy madman (which he may not deny
anyway <g>), consider this before passing final judgement on the
soundness of his business strategy:
While we wait to see if Rev's low-price strategy will prove worth the
higher support and marketing costs that come with such a move, one thing
we know for sure is that for all the history of xTalks only two men have
ever earned a graceful early retirement from developing an xTalk engine:
Bill Atkinson, and Scott Raney.
He can be an unusual communicator, but he's also one of the smartest and
most successful developers I've ever met.
--
Richard Gaskin
Managing Editor, revJournal
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